Summary

Recounts the years Sonic Youth spent in used vans, sleeping on floors, touring to apathetic colleges and burnt out rock venues, waiting for the occasional show to make it all worthwhile. Since their 1991 signing with Geffen/DGC records, Sonic Youth have released three mature post rock instrumental CDs on their own SYR label.

Publisher's Weekly Review

Ranaldo (Road Movies) is the guitarist for Sonic Youth, arguably the most vital and enduring band to have emerged from American punk rock. They cut through the vapidity of '80s Top 40 and enabled the angry rise of Nirvana and company to megastardom, and still, after two decades together, make music that is innovative and influential. Ranaldo's writings from the decade that made the band a legend are collected here. However, both the fan looking for a comprehensive tour diary and the rock historian searching for insights will be disappointed. This thin volume is too crowded and the writing is too variedÄstream of consciousness prose, performance poetry, song lyrics, letters to friends and family. It is as dense with noise and as far-flung as a Sonic Youth tour circa 1985. The long prose pieces tend to be the best of the lot, the most enjoyable of these from the Australian tour in 1989. Some observations hit home: of London, Ranaldo observes that "the same old rock scene stuff is going down here as anywhere, only the haircuts have been changed to protect the innocent." But too much falls flat. In particular, the poetry (hard to distinguish from the song lyrics that are also reproduced here) simply shows how much better it would be to listen to Sonic Youth's albums than read this. Photos, illustrations. (Apr.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

SD_ILS:1001686

9781887128315

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